Weymouth schools serving more homeless kids

Friday

Apr 11, 2014 at 9:14 PMApr 11, 2014 at 9:17 PM

The Weymouth schools are providing services to 222 students who qualify as homeless under a federal law called the McKinney-Vento Act, which requires public schools to provide special services to those kids. That's a significant increase over last year, when the district served 172 such students, according to data provided by the schools.

Christian Schiavone The Patriot Ledger @CSchiavo_Ledger

WEYMOUTH – The number of students who get up each morning in a homeless shelter, a motel room or on someone else’s couch and head to school is rising.

The Weymouth schools are providing services to 222 students who qualify as homeless under a federal law called the McKinney-Vento Act, which requires public schools to provide special services to those children. Last year, the district served 172 such students, according to data provided by the schools.

The law can be a financial and logistical burden for school districts, especially when it comes to transporting homeless students, who are entitled to continue attending their school if they become homeless and are forced to relocate to another community. If they choose to do so, the home district and the one where the student is residing must cover the transportation cost.

But it’s one cost that school officials don’t complain about, school committee Chairman Sean Guilfoyle said.

“It’s the right thing for us to do to help these kids get back to where the normal part of their life is happening,” he said. “I just put myself in those people’s situation, and I wouldn’t want to be there.”

In 2012, a review by state Auditor Suzanne Bump’s office projected Weymouth would have the 10th-highest transportation cost for homeless students in the state at about $217,800. At the time, districts had to cover that cost on their own.

The state began covering part of the cost last year, when it reimbursed Weymouth for $148,600 of the $158,000 the schools spent on transporting homeless students. The district has not yet received word on how much help from the state it will receive this year.

Statewide, about 15,800 students are considered homeless, which means they may be living in shelters, motels or hotels, temporary housing, trailer parks, campgrounds or doubling up with friends or relatives because of financial hardship.

Of the 222 homeless students receiving services from the Weymouth schools, 160 go to school in Weymouth. Some of them come in from towns as far away as East Bridgewater, Brockton and Waltham. Another 62 students are taken from Weymouth to schools they attended before becoming homeless, in places as far away as East Bridgewater, Everett and New Bedford.

The federal government offers grants to fund services for homeless students, including tutoring, classroom supplies, clothing and before- and after-school programs. This year, the Weymouth schools received a $20,000 grant, but the competition for that money is increasing, said Joan Woodward, the district’s homeless services liaison.

Woodward, who presented the new data to the school committee Thursday night, said keeping displaced kids in the schools they’re used to is the best thing for some of the district’s most vulnerable students.

“It is in the best educational interest of the child,” she said during the meeting.